Tales from 815 Pancake Road
by UniqaChica
Summary: A collection of short views into the day-to-day lives of Flo and Quinn.
1. Quinn's Dumb Diet Plan

(A/N: I'm only writing this because I am a gigantic nerd and I find the DinerToons very lovable. Enjoy!)

by Jill Diamond

**Quinn's Dumb Diet Plan**

Three o'clock. Flo was dead asleep, her legs curled up beneath her and her pillow half in a headlock.

The loud _SLAM _of their front door was what made her lids fly open, revealing bloodshot eyes to the darkness. She could hear heavy breathing from the living room, so she reluctantly dragged herself off her mattress, not even bothering with her slippers. She didn't even fully enter the living room; she simply opened her door and leaned against the doorjamb with a limp jaw.

"Skillet, move..." The scruffy lab jumped down from his place on the couch for his own safety before Quinn could squish him. She flopped down hard in her favorite pink sweats, shins hung over the armrest and her chest heaving broadly. Skillet started licking at her hand, which hung close to the floor, and she didn't even make an attempt to move it. Her red hair was pulled back into a ponytail. Flo knew for a fact that Quinn's hair only became stringy like that when she was stressed out. She had helped out at enough wedding receptions to know all of Quinn's physical danger signs.

"Where have you been?" Flo yawned, too lazy to cover her mouth.

"I got home...at eleven fifty-nine. By midnight...I had been ambushed...and was already making haste...down Spendalot...with nothing more...than a headlamp...and a bottle of water," Quinn huffed, her eyes screwed tight.

"Ambushed?"

"I'll give you...one guess."

"Jo?"

"...Ding...ding...ding." She moaned as she rolled herself onto her side, finally pulling her Skillet-tainted hand up and tucking it under her arm. "She says...that midnight jogs...keep you 'pumped'...The only reason...I got pumped was 'cause...I felt like a criminal...Every five minutes...I thought that Otto was gonna be right...behind me."

"Sorry."

"How...? How does _anyone_...have the stamina...to go on a _three-mile jog_...at midnight?"

Flo crossed her arms, leaning further into the doorway.

"I swear, she must take a tranquilizer before her yoga class, 'cause that's the only time I've seen her calm."

"Please...just do one thing for me, Flo." For the first time that night, Quinn opened her eyes and looked square at Flo's stomach (she couldn't look any higher without making herself dizzy).

"What's that?"

"The next time...I think that I need to trim an inch off my waist...please, _smack _me if I try to tell Jo."

Flo couldn't help but crack a half-smile.

"You know I'm gonna hold you to that."

"That's why I'm asking you." Quinn was joking, even though she sounded like she was going into cardiac arrest.

"You gonna sleep on the couch?"

"Most likely."

"Well, I have to go in early tomorrow, so you'll have to wake yourself up."

"Mm, you're mean."

Flo chuckled.

"Good night."

"G'nigh..." Quinn's voice quit on her before she could punctuate the word, and she was asleep.

Flo patted her legs.

"C'mon, Skillet, you're sleeping with me tonight."


	2. Flo's Beloved Rabbit Ears

**Flo's Beloved Rabbit Ears**

"Left just a bit...a little mo-no, Quinn, your _other _left...Yeah, _that's _it...okay, a little more...no, that's worse."

Quinn exhaled harshly through her nose in frustration.

DinerTown was being soaked. The harshest rainstorm in three months. Bistro Bay was already in danger of flooding. But nothing was going to get in the way of the "As the Burger Turns" season finale. Nothing. Though the roommates were no longer part of the show, Rosie's writing had an addicting way about it, and they still watched the show religiously.

But the storm was causing interference, and Flo's beloved rabbit ears were getting on Quinn's nerves.

"_We're getting cable; I don't care what she says," _she kept repeating in her mind.

Flo popped another of the Peanut Butter Eat-Em-Alls that the girls had set out earlier into her mouth, and shoved it all into one cheek so she could still direct Quinn.

"...I dink it needs ta be higher."

"Flo, I'm afraid the cord's gonna pop out enough as it is!" To test Flo's theory of "cell phone relativity", Quinn had piled the antennae on top of four empty shoe boxes and two outdated copies of the DinerTown Phone Directory to try and get a signal. She had had to climb onto a chair to keep the thing steady (kicking off her heels, of course). Flo claimed that the picture was better this way, but Quinn wasn't ready to believe her.

Flo wasn't listening to her roommate. Keeping one eye on the TV, she sprinted to her bookshelf and pulled out two thick cookbooks ("BLTs Around the World" and "101 Uses for Fresh Produce").

"Here, try these."

Quinn rolled her eyes.

"Come on!" Flo whined. "The show starts in three minutes, and I don't know about you, but I wanna see if Leela breaks out of jail or not!"

Quinn took one of the cookbooks and carefully lifted the rabbit ears, sliding 101 produce recipes under them.

"_..bzzt...bzrt...bzit tight, because coming up is the soap event you won't wanna miss! The season finale of "As the Burger Turns" - next on DTWC!"_

"Ha! See, I told you it would work!"

Carefully steadying the tower, Quinn jumped down from her chair and narrowly missed Flo as she fell into the couch, grabbing for a cookie and anxiously waiting for the commercials to be over.


	3. The Most Interesting Breakfast Ever

**The Most Interesting Breakfast Ever**

The day before Flo's payday was always...interesting, to say the least.

When they first moved in together, they had agreed to alternate on who would pay for monthly expenses (which would mostly consist of one girl paying the rent, and the other paying for everything else). Most of what Flo earned, she put right back into the diner, be it stocking up on ingredients or advertising or fixing something that her grandmother had inevitably broken. And most of what was left over usually went into some sort of gift for another friend trying to start their own business. So, groceries for home were never the first thing on her mind. And when they started to run out, things got _very _interesting.

It was a Sunday. It was Quinn's turn to pay the rent.

Flo had her head stuck in the fridge, with four other cabinets open wide. From the back, she pulled out what looked like a carton of buttermilk, untucked the spout, and brought it to her nose. The twitches of the bottom of her mouth told Quinn it was at least four months. Flo chucked it in the trash without a word.

"How about..." she hummed as she desperately searched for ingredients, "baked scrambled eggs...with hot dog bits..._and..._" She pulled a small spice jar from a top cabinet and sniffed it carefully. "Nutmeg?"

"How can you _bake _scrambled eggs?"

"I dunno, but I can't cook them on the stove because we're out of cooking spray. And olive oil. And butter. And shortening. And leftover bacon grease."

Quinn scratched at her brow in a mix of awe and contemplation.

"How about just coffee? It'll be less fattening that way."

"Can't," Flo winced. "We're out of coffee."

"We're out of _coffee?_" Quinn echoed. "How can we be out of coffee? We _never _run out of coffee."

"I think most of it went into planning that wedding for the couple with, what, _sixteen _allergies?"

"It was twelve, and you've made your point," Quinn articulated, not wanting to remember how sleep deprived she had been when she had gone to Yum Yum Bakery the next day and literally had fallen asleep into a cake. Her hair never quite forgave her. She sighed. "Flo, you're _your own boss. _Can't you just take your paycheck a day or two early?"

"No," Flo answered without having to think, "because that would be unfair to Cookie."

Quinn just slumped into her palm and kept her tongue in her mouth, because she knew that she couldn't argue with that.

"Let's try this..." Flo covered a baking tray in aluminum foil and cracked three eggs onto the center. They went straight into the oven. Midway during their cooking, Flo pulled the rack forward so she could work, and broke up the egg slurp with a spatula. It ended up being a bit hard to pull off, but heartily cooked. Flo sliced an entire cold hot dog into the slightly burned egg, and sprinkled nutmeg over the top.

"Interesting flavor," Quinn mused when she cautiously slid a bite into her mouth.

Flo scooped up a forkful and tasted for herself.

"_Very _interesting..." She stared off into space as she chewed. "I wonder-"

"No, Flo, you are _not _putting this on the menu at the diner."


End file.
